des memos from des moines: they fall down in iowa

My cousin Pamela called the other day to ask why I don't write about her in this space. This space that I emailed her about months ago. This space that we've never discussed because apparently she deleted the link when I sent it to her because she didn't know what it was and didn't bother exploring. This site, the one you're reading right now that she hasn't seen fit to read in all. this. time.

"I've fallen! I've fallen on the ice at least twice this year. Why don't you write about me?!" she wanted to know after she finally read the site last week and saw that I'd recounted her sister's fall in the grocery store.

Well, I didn't write about it because I didn't know about it. The truth is, I suppose I could have assumed her fall because A) she lives in Iowa where there's nothing but snow and ice for like three-quarters of the year and so regular falling should be expected and B) because she's Pammy and of all us kids, she spent the most of her childhood in various casts. As a kid she had a hard time keeping her footing and this despite the fact that she spent most of her childhood in the South where there wasn't even anything so slippery as ice with which to contend. Add the ice and she's doomed. So I should have known, but this is a factual site from my perspective and I only take poetic license with the details. Generally, I don't imagine storylines or dialogue. Generally, I sort of, I guess . . . um. . . report. Whatever.

But honestly I wasn't aware of the fact that she'd fallen, because she'd never mentioned it. Lately -- I'd say over the past few months and maybe even couple of years -- Pammy's dramas have been rather more dramatic. Dramatic in the real life, not to be made-light-of real life sort of way.

Here's the thing. Every time I talk to Pamela lately someone else she knows has. . . well. . . died. Seriously. She's had a rather bad and tragic run of sudden deaths in her general vicinity -- friends' parents, acquaintances from church, in-laws. It's horribly, awfully horrible. I'm afraid to pick up the phone to call her these days. I have to mentally prepare myself to face death every time I ring up Iowa. It's practically a mitzvah to do so. And it's not like we haven't had our own share of deaths in our own respective families over the past couple of years, too. But I'm not writing about those either right now. Because it isn't funny. It's kind of raw. I mean there are some stories there, stories worth telling even. Stories that with time I might be able to recount with sensitivity, wit and yes, even humor. But I'm just not ready yet.

And if I'm not going to write about my own personal tragedies, I'm certainly not going to write about the out-of-the-blue tragic tragedies of people I know of only because Pamela happens to live near them. And just because Pamela's sad and feels free to bum me out by sharing her latest so-and-so has died stories (which for the record I'm glad to hear in that I want to be supportive and because I care about her and her well-being and the well-being of those she cares about very much), doesn't mean I have to depress you, too. You, who are sitting at your job which very probably depresses you enough as it is. You don't want to read about people dying this early in the morning, do you? Do you? You don't. So I won't. (On the other hand, I'm not completely discriminatory. I have no problem whatsoever writing about the death of fish. Cori's stories are just pseudo tragic. Not tragic-tragic. And much more appropriate to this site of pseudo tragic-comedy.)

To be fair, Pammy does have a very funny story about her young son pulling the emergency alarm at the airport at like three o'clock in the morning, in the middle of what was arguably the most arduous series of ridiculously delayed and re-routed flights in the history of travel, but it happened a really long time ago and I don't remember the details and this post is already too long and so I'm going to stop.

But not before I say this: Pammy, perhaps you should purchase yourself some cramp-ons for your shoes. Now that I know, I'm concerned about how much you're apparently falling these days. And just so the third sister, Allyson, doesn't call to ask why I have not also written about her, I'll say this: She's very tall, thin and quite beautiful, but she has an out-of-perspective concern about the onset back fat -- invisible to the naked eye, but which is vaguely evident if she happens to contort herself into a backbend which she will do, just to prove she's got it. Oh, that and she's probably pumping breast milk while reading this. Now that's dedication.